As I walked along the street – Janet Frame

Focus on Frame!



As I walked along the street – Janet Frame

As I walked along the street I heard
a transistor radio singing like a bird,
an advertisement for 4ZB
singing in the cherry tree.

I said, So high, so far away
you sing in the push-button sky.
Have you a message of faith and hope?
It said – Use Lily-Clean Soap.

And I was angry then and tried
to forget the transistor bird
but its voice came loud in the world so green
- With Hexachlorophene.

Then I smote the bird and I smote the tree
and the push-button sky fell down on me,
and dying I lay alone without hope
or faith or Lily-Clean Soap.


I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.

The Poet – Janet Frame

I am starting to believe that "Janet Frame" is unlucky. Janet Frame Month in December didn't work because of a death in the family. Janet Frame Month in January didn't work because the computer died... Maybe Janet Frame Month in February will work...


The Poet – Janet Frame

Though the wheat is so beautifully puffed
the rice is ballooned and stuffed
and the world seems so much bigger
from a few to a marvelous crowd
of supers, the pushing and proud
with more push and pride and the prig growing prigger.
The poet still breathes with one lung
climbs a ladder of only one rung
shoots stars with his hand off the trigger.




I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.

Chimney Fire – Janet Frame

January is Janet Frame Month



Chimney Fire – Janet Frame

The shaking sou’west breath that will make
the telegraph wires moan and tell all their consuming
burden of messages in snow-clean confessional,
has panicked fire out of this heart and house, has raged
a passage of blood through soot
that may have choked or helped, like the black dust
that settles or battles with each coal of thought.



I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.

Matthew – Janet Frame

January is Janet Frame Month

Matthew – Janet Frame

It is Matthew dressed in a sea wave, scarcely walking
for weeds about his ankles, his life willingly
set in the stocks of ocean, pelted with light,
with ripe leaves from inland trees,
grievance of sharp deserted shells.
Open to door to him and the Dog Night.

He will stand there pleading the innocence of salt and cockle tooth
though his life has savored many tears from the biting tide.
Over his thin unwashed body, congealed sunlight,
The black and white defiances of grave and shell
Minstrel his passionate reason to be: it is, interpret
All shapes of wave, shell, and gull in flight.

Clairvoyant for what lives and is not human
the black Dog Night at his heels he walks night and day
by this dead sea where, Arabs of summer, children
holidaymaking bring new ancient scrolls to light.

O bandit gull, nomad wave,
from babbling cave of dungeon to articulate man,
man weeping,
man walking upright




I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.

Graduate – Janet Frame

January is Janet Frame Month

Graduate – Janet Frame

She lives in letters. She knows
the quote, the plot that suits,
the words that fir the moment
as fox gloves fit the fleeing fox
with golden brush and speckled poison
described by him and him and her. Squalid borrower
who dreams another’s life, who lives
not under the sun but flat between
another’s pages as the useful bookmark, the fringed self-centre.

Still she wait for the surprising pool
where nothing grows, no fish have swum before,
no reed or weed has stirred – a hopeless dream
for already
- “the sedge is withered from the lake and no birds sing.”




I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.

Sunday – Janet Frame

January is Janet Frame Month

Sunday – Janet Frame

Sunday’s thermos is filled,
Sunday’s hedge clipped, car cleaned, scales played.
The plastic prayer, though it melts in the fire
is contrived in the correct shape
in a lovely contemporary colour.

Go fishing in the muddy stream
borrow an inch of beach, rent a sand fly and jellyfish
lie in bed burned bitten and stung
by the lovely contemporary wish
being granted – oh breathless –
on a flesh-colored plastic dish



I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.

As I walked along the street – Janet Frame

January is Janet Frame Month


As I walked along the street – Janet Frame

As I walked along the street I heard
a transistor radio singing like a bird,
an advertisement for 4ZB
singing in the cherry tree.

I said, So high, so far away
you sing in the push-button sky.
Have you a message of faith and hope?
It said – Use Lily-Clean Soap.

And I was angry then and tried
to forget the transistor bird
but its voice came loud in the world so green
- With Hexachlorophene.

Then I smote the bird and I smote the tree
and the push-button sky fell down on me,
and dying I lay alone without hope
or faith or Lily-Clean Soap.


I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.

The Poet – Janet Frame

January is now Janet Frame Month


The Poet – Janet Frame

Though the wheat is so beautifully puffed
the rice is ballooned and stuffed
and the world seems so much bigger
from a few to a marvelous crowd
of supers, the pushing and proud
with more push and pride and the prig growing prigger.
The poet still breathes with one lung
climbs a ladder of only one rung
shoots stars with his hand off the trigger.




I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.

Mr Universe – Janet Frame

January is Janet Frame Month


Mr Universe – Janet Frame

The speak-and-run murderer is at large
as his own victim.
In the newspapers and the comic strips
the panic balloons are rising like flares form his lips
in deadly simple navigation to express
his need, his pain and cold:
Help, Ouch, Br-r-r.

He is Mr Universe of the gonging biceps.
His brute head when the swarm of thought is over wears
the whistling helmet of an empty hive.
And soon, they say, his body as the whipped steed
of cylinders will ride to neigh at the moon
his need his pain and cold
- Help, Ouch, Br-r-r -
in secret hope of an answer.




I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.

Unemployment – Janet Fame

December was Janet Frame Month, but I missed it due to going back to my parents house for a month (leg op, plus g'mother died, plus xmas and new years), so January is now Janet Frame Month :D

Unemployment – Janet Fame

Each Tuesday at ten o’clock I go to the Employment Exchange,
fill in the form they give me, tell what I have earned
for chopping down the neighbour’s tree, feeding his horse,
rescuing a silly sheep from the swamp. Sometimes, with odd jobs,
I make as much as a pound a week, but no one
offers anything permanent. The official (whom I knew at school,
a bear in the back sear) gapes at me: I’m sorry we cannot place you.
And therefore I am not placed, not in this or that. I have
a fine box of tools that I keep well-oiled. I have experience
and knowledge tied in a waiting bundle in the corner of my mind
nearest the door but no one knocks and the door is never opened.

I collect my weekly allowance. I go home,
I cuddle my wife, feed the cat,
and, for no purpose in no place, grow fat.



I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.